The Lion Saver
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: It's never in Leomon's fate to survive, but now there's Juri and she'll save some reincarnation of her partner...somehow. Even if she has to leave her home and travel through dimensions to do it.
1. the first Leomon

**A/N:** Written for the:

Interseason Big Bang  
Diversity Writing Challenge, h6 – ficlet collection with ficlets 501-1000 words  
Becoming the Tamer King, Training Peak task  
Digimon Dawn/Dusk Remake Challenge, dusk registration task – write about a female character

* * *

 **The Lion Saver**  
 _1: the first Leomon_

The first Leomon dies before Juri is even a Chosen Child and before she even knows digimon are real.

She watches it on television, when they air Digimon Adventure and there's no stepmother or stepbrother, but there's no mother either: there's only her and her father. She watches it on television when he's busy setting up the bar and she's taking a break from her homework to follow the series that's the hype of their class (and probably a good deal many other children as well).

She watches Leomon when it first appears on the screen, in that episode where it fights against evil on his own but is overpowered – and then saved by the light of companionship, consumed when he's left alone again and they cycle between the two of them until the evil's finally defeated and she can breathe a sigh of relief, because she's come to really like the lion digimon when he's not under that evil spell and it's really sad to see him when he is.

It's a little silly, she knows, because digimon are only products of a line of games and anime or so she thinks. But if she were to have a digimon of her own, she'd choose a Leomon, she decides. Even if the anime doesn't show them having any choice at all and the games don't give a Leomon as a starter. But that's okay. She can find Leomon eventually if she plays hard enough and it's the same with the cards. She'll find a Leomon card and then she'll build her deck around it and she buys packs and packs and packs and winds up with some treasures the boys in her class would probably drool over, but she's not that great at the game and doesn't realise it.

Though she doesn't get a Leomon for a long time, and it's not even that rare a card.

But she does get it eventually – and, as a pleasant surprise, Leomon reappears in the anime series the same week… though, granted, it's the preview for the next episode that clues her in.

As quite an awful surprise though, he dies the next episode. And it's the first time she's ever cried over a character from a television series but she really liked that Leomon.

At least there's Primary Village, the way for digimon to be reborn in a way that humans can't – and that's one of the things she likes the most about the digimon – and about that scene when Leomon shatters into sparkling bites like powder snow… And she doesn't like the scene otherwise because Leomon's dead and she cries and scenes like that aren't nice, they're not nice at all.

Leomon's not the first digimon to die on screen and she's seen death in real life so she wonders why this one affects her so much. But she cries for him anyway. She allows herself to cry for him anyway.

And then she builds her deck around the Leomon card she's finally gotten her hands on and watches the rest of Digimon Adventure, and then ZeroTwo rooting and hoping for his rebirth and return, because that's all she can do, but the latter never comes. She sees a glimpse of a Leomon in the final episode, but it's not the same one. The Leomon from File Island never comes back.

Like a human being, it dies and doesn't come back at all.


	2. her Leomon

**The Lion Saver  
** _2: her Leomon_

She meets this Leomon a little after she's learnt that digimon are real and slip into and out of their world and some other kids their age have their own partner digimon, including some of her friends. In fact, she meets Leomon when she decides she doesn't want to be left out of the fun and adventure and the commodore they're building together and she wants one of the visiting digimon to be her partner too.

And then she sees Leomon, and no other partner will do her.

Even though Leomon declines, at first. He's nice to her, and protects her when she's in trouble, but she thinks she must annoy him because he wants to escape her as soon as possible. But later she discovers that's not true. She frightens him instead, because all he knew in the Digital World was fighting and he can't understand why someone would like him and want to be with him over and above any other digimon, especially when he loses in front of her.

But that comes later. That's the moment of their true partnership, when she receives a digivice for her wishes and turns his defeat into a victory.

And maybe she doesn't understand as well. Doesn't understand how a digimon who's only fought can think she's brave when she hardly ever fights, when she's barely even capable of fighting. She makes more of a mess with the first digimon she winds up going solo with, even after all the episodes she's watched, all the cards she's collected and all the digimon handheld games she's played (and she's made it her personal mission after discovering her love for Leomon to raise one in each and every playthrough). And even though Ruki's taught her how to play better than she can manage from the guidebook and she's brought her best deck with her, it's really Takato and Jenrya and Ruki that do the bulk of the fighting and yet Leomon still calls her brave.

They really have different views of themselves than the views they hold of each other – but that helps their understanding blossom and it promises to be a wonderful relationship in which the two of them grow and grow together –

And then it's cut cruelly short, and so suddenly she can't even move to do a think about it.

And she wonders what's the point. Why is she a tamer when Leomon can die so quickly she can't even step in with the only weapons she has that can help him: her cards. And she can't make Leomon digivolve. She has no blue card. And there's no magic cure in all the cards, no death reversal, nothing to stop him as his body crumbles –

And the horror gives way to tears and, for the moment, the two of them struggle within her: her agony, and how useless she is to do anything about it all.

Watching a Leomon die on the television is one thing. Watching her own precious partner die when she's only a few precious steps away is enough to shatter her.

And in the aftermath of that, amidst the glass, she learns what Leomon really meant when he'd said she had a lion's heart. Because there were Leomon crawling everywhere in her mind and not one of them is hers. Like the Leomon in Adventure, dead again. Like one who's turned black with evil and rage and who's fought against again and again when even her Leomon, who'd only known a life of fighting, had still fought against the oppressors and for the weak, had still been inherently good. And others, flickering too fast and starting and ending too far away.

She sees them all, and she can't just stand and watch, again and again.


	3. the fate of all Leomon

**The Lion Saver  
** _3: the fate of all Leomon_

There are countless Leomon there, and yet she can see not one of them lasts forever. They live, they fight and sometimes they grow and digivolve but inevitably they die and they're not reborn and why is there no rebirth for them? Why can't they live a life that's not so quickly cut short?

Is it a curse? Then what did the original Leomon do to deserve such a fate for his entire life? It's not fair at all. It's like a child paying for the sin of her parents and her children paying for the same sin when they've had no role in that sin at all, when they didn't even exist at the time of that sin, when they weren't even a thought.

It's not fair and she screams that when she can't just watch silently any more. She screams that and yet nothing changes. It's like she's not even there and she's not. She can't touch even one of them. She can't even reach them and she's tried. First with hesitant, pattering steps and then she flat out ran but she still could reach them, couldn't touch them, couldn't change their fates…

Why? It isn't fair. But she can do nothing. She has nothing. Her digivice is cracked and all the cards she swipes through them do no good at all until they spill from her hands as well, and they scatter at her feet and stay there no matter how she's moved about afterwards.

It's not a world but a meta-world and it seems every Leomon in existence is there. And it seems as though they're all fated to die as well and at some point she screams because nothing else works. She screams out at the agony of it all, at the unfairness of it all –

And then someone answers. A voice she doesn't recognise, and perhaps will never recognise. A voice that is neither male nor female, neither human nor digimon. 'Can you save them?'

That voice is crying too. Crying and sad and desperate and just as powerless as her.

'I want to,' she sobs. 'I want to but how can I?'

And, for a moment, all she can do is despair. Because here's another who wants to help them but can't. Another who watches this tragedy unfold and unfold and all they can do is cry.

But along with despair comes hope. 'You can,' says the voice. 'Along with despair is always hope, and the deeper the despair, the stronger the hope. You are the only one who would be willing to fight for the Leomon with that hope.'

'I don't understand…' And she doesn't. What does that mean? Isn't it the other way around? With hope comes despair – but how does it work the other way. The dead don't come back to life and that in itself proves the cycle is incomplete.

The circle was never complete to begin with.

'You'll try,' the voice whispers to her. 'Even if the Leomon most important to you is beyond you, you'll try for these other Leomon. Most people who lose what's most precious to them cannot. Despair cripples them.'

'And you're saying I have hope?' The tears fall relentlessly and save her skirt. 'I don't have hope, and now you're telling me I'll never get my Leomon back as well…'

'You can,' says the voice. 'If you save one Leomon, you'll save them all. But when it's not the one you love in front of you, you can still fight for them. Others can't.'

That… makes more sense, she thinks, except she still doesn't see why she's an exception to this, why she is deemed capable while others aren't, and yet hope does blossom in her heart now. She can get her precious partner back and she can save these other Leomon as well –

As long as she's not as powerless to save them as she's been so far.

'Don't give up,' are the final words of wisdom from the bodiless voice.

 _Don't give up…_ Then she'll have to keep on trying and trying until she saves one, and then she'll have saved them all.


	4. the mad Leomon

**The Lion Saver  
** _4: the mad Leomon_

The world spins away and then she's in a burning forest she's never seen before. There are other children there and they're fleeing and she races after them because there's nothing else to raise after except the flames that lick everything and her self-preservation and the Leomon she's trying to save scream at her to not do such a thing.

So she pelts after them and, slowly, she falls behind because they can all run faster than her and they've got something beyond the fire driving them, some enemy they fight. And she hears them, through the crackling of trees and leaves catching light: snarls and growls and something dark, something terrifying –

Something familiar and she almost trips over her feet when she recognises it.

Not from her Leomon. Never from her Leomon. But the first Leomon she'd ever scene, from Digimon Adventure. When he'd been consumed by the black gears, by Devimon's evil touch, by evil itself –

There is a Leomon in the forest and it's hurting but it's also drowning in evil and the forest is falling to pieces all around her.

She's lost the children she was following by that point as well and she can only run aimlessly about, alternating between trying to find them or find the Leomon or escape the inferno and eventually she only manages the last one because she's in a village and she learns the Leomon is in fact called MadLeomon and the children have long since left.

(And what she doesn't learn and doesn't know is that she's saved MadLeomon from being destroyed by simply being in that village when the children left the Zone).

She follows their tracks and it's difficult because they have a means of transportation that she doesn't so she has to go by foot and, because of that, she keeps on missing them. They're gone before she can catch up. And they don't even know she's chasing them to wait and so she chases them on a one way street where they're always moving – and the MadLeomon is probably chasing them far ahead of her as well.

But at some point they'll all run into each other. She's sure. And they do run into each other but they're clashes that are over in a flash just like the fire and she can't seem to keep up. And the children are bigger every time: more digimon behind them, and that Shoutmon – X2, X3, X4…

Sometime after that've unlocked X5, Juri comes across it with its sword in MadLeomon's head.

And all the recovery cards she has can't do a thing about it.

The children stay though. Surround her. Ask what her cards are, and why she's tried to use them on "such a plainly evil digimon". She snaps at the digimon who says that, because Leomon aren't evil by choice. Their hearts are gold.

The boy with the goggles (though so different from Takato) looks sympathetic, but the truth of the matter is MadLeomon was trying to kill them and they fought back to protect themselves and the others he tried to destroy.

It's just sad and pathetic she couldn't do a thing to change it after all.

(And, maybe, all she managed was to increase his suffering by giving him all those second chances her presence, like an annoying light he had to run away from, had given him.)


	5. the reborn Leomon

**The Lion Saver  
** _5: the reborn Leomon_

This Leomon looks familiar. Is familiar. Cross-legged across from the fire she wakes up in front of.

It's not her Leomon though. But the Leomon from Digimon Adventure and still a grin wide enough to split the angle of her lips grows on her face, because it's the Leomon from Digimon Adventure and yet she owns the cassettes that depict its death and that means this Leomon has been reborn!

Or else she's travelled back in time or space to that particular pocket space right before his death but it's a long time before, by Digimon Adventure stands. Hundreds of digimon years, if she's remembering right.

'You are a sad human,' the Leomon notes. 'Though you have such a lovely smile on your face right –'

He stops, because Juri throws herself around the fire and hugs his middle and he's caught off guard. But he pats her back quickly enough. Quicker than her own Leomon, actually, and she supposes that means he has been reborn because Leomon only knew a human hug when Mimi embraced him after they'd met again, after those hundreds or so Digimon years and the Dark Masters and Spiral Mountain…

'I'm just happy to see you alive,' Juri admits. 'To see any Leomon alive.'

He pats her back a little more. 'I'm sorry for your loss,' he says, because he can see she's lost someone – or many someones.

And she brushes her tears away and thinks that this is a good sign. A really good sign.

They talk. And she discovers that she's right. This Leomon has been reborn from the Adventure one and it sounds as though ZeroTwo has happened too because he tells the tale of the evil vampire's defeat and how the butterflies protect the world to the children, and then explains with a few less adjectives and a few more names and details to her once the babies are asleep.

And they really are cute, all the babies in Primary Village. And she's never seen baby digimon in real life before because their Digital World was a place where only the strong survived and the babies were tucked away in some corner until they were old enough to throw their lot with the world – or they weren't old enough and suffered for it. There were digimon like Leomon who'd protect the weak but in the end even they strove to be stronger, to survive and it was survival of the fittest. The plain cruel reality of Darwin's theory.

But this world made hope blossom because Leomon was here, regardless of what else had happened, what else was said. Not her Leomon, but _a_ Leomon.

And then the stray thought wandered in. How was she supposed to save her Leomon if this one didn't need saving?

But she learned quickly enough. This Leomon did need saving but at least this time she was there, and ready because there'd been an advanced warning and the fights were few and scattered and she was surprised at first but ready for the next encounter.

But that didn't matter. Leomon defeated the crazed Ogremon with her help – and then fell victim to the assassin neither of them had even seen coming.

And how – how was she supposed to protect them when the world threw curve-balls like that? She wanted to scream and cry and even curse at the sky, no matter how odd that sensation felt to her, because it was a paradox she couldn't solve – and what could she do to stop something like _that?_ Tell the Leomon to destroy everything in the world so only he remained?

She couldn't do that.

And she was sure Leomon couldn't do that either.


	6. the Leomon with two souls

**The Lion Saver  
** _6: the Leomon with two souls_

This time, she doesn't see a Leomon but a man crossing the desert and she takes the opportunity to scream because no-one can hear her but him.

He comes over to her, the perfect gentleman, and offers her aid.

She asks him to tell her if he sees a Leomon – and to protect him, if he can.

She meets a Leomon some time later, a Leomon with a jacket and a pipe, to be precise, and is given a Suguru-san's regards. She assumes that's the man who she'd seen crossing the desert – and she makes sure to stick close to the Leomon.

He's not too thrilled with his tagalong, but he fights with himself and then relents.

He even trains her, so she can fight with more than her cards and a Leomon by her side. He's not too thrilled with her cards though. Thinks it's not power that comes from inside of her, or inside of him, or inside of anyone and she can't really refute that. They're tools that give the tamers an edge up in the fighting but they haven't saved a Leomon yet, have they? At least, her cards have been pretty much useless even though she has so many of them.

He teaches her to fight with her fists instead and it's tricky until he finds the chip in her armour and she solidifies her conviction to fight – because that's what it really boils down to, in the end: what she's fighting for, and how far she's willing to go for it – and how many times she's willing to try.

If she can learn something new every time, she'll eventually find the thing that can save them all and so, at the moment, the answer is "as many times as it takes."

And it'll take another attempt, though she thinks it's impossible to have done anything to prevent it this time because it's the god of the Digital World – this Digital World – and he's protecting his son with his body and how can anyone possibly convince him to do anything else?

And it's only after that that she learns the truth, learns the BanchoLeomon is a digimon but also the man she'd met in the desert that time a while ago, and that's why he's helped her along –

And maybe he had taken her words to heart and that's why they united… but BanchoLeomon had to be the one to save his soul from a god's wrath and now they both paid the price for it.

The only option, really, would have been to have them never meet –

And she was the one who put a Leomon into his mind.

Is she the cause of this, then? Is she just making everything worse?

But she can't accept that, because the voice promised her it's possible and when the possibility becomes reality, it'll erase all of this as well.

And her Leomon once told her she had a lion's heart. She has to use that to save them. Save them all.

And to save them all, she has to save one. And she's failed already thrice. She may fail many times more but if she saves one at the end of the road, she saves them all. And she'll be the only one to carry the weight of all their deaths on her soul.

To see Leomon again…

But she can see why it's a price no-one else wants to pay.


	7. the white Leomon

**The Lion Saver  
** _7: the white Leomon_

This place winds up shaking her resolve. It's frightening, how there seems to be shadows in the wall and floating eyes that stare at her and she hasn't got a clue what to do or where to go. And it's frightening when the shadows leave the wall and change into her, _become_ her with even her precious sock puppet but with a sick grin on her face which makes her want to puke.

She actually has no idea how she manages to hold it in but she can't stop herself from blocking her ears and screaming when it – the shadow – talks. Because it's trying to tear up all her confidence and attempts and drag out all her failures instead and she can't let it because if she does she'll give up and she can't give up because her Leomon is waiting for her.

It descends into a fight and she wonders when she's become this sort of person who leaps into fights willy-nilly, even if it's not willy-nilly. But what happened to the Katou Juri who used to always smile in the face of troubles and not fight back because she knew fighting back would only make things escalate –

But she can't protect anything without fighting back and she knows that now. And she's fighting to get something back and because of that, she can fight even if she's never been a fighter before. She can fight and she's going to fight –

But the shadow-her knows all the same moves she does, and has all the same cards she does as well and has the advantage of acting half a second after her or so it seems, reacting to everything she does…

But her father is quite fond of chess and she knows the person who plays first in a mirror strategy is in fact the one with the advantage come the middle game.

And she does it. She works out the hole in her own strategy and subsequently in her shadow's and she nails it and the other is powerless to stop it.

And then the eye swallows her whole and she discovers the Leomon that's brought her to this world.

It's a white Leomon: white mane, white skin, white attack that flew from his fist and his opponent is red hot. It barely talks. Not to his opponent. Not to her when she shouts from her own vantage point though the red humanoid digimon looks her way and then tries to stir her away and he can't seem to see at all that she's waving her arms and trying to get him to _stop –_

It's like the MadLeomon incident all over again, except not because the red humanoid digimon confesses to having never seen the other Leomon before. 'It's Cherubimon,' he explains though, like that's supposed to solve everything. 'He does this weird thing to digimon to make them act up, but putting them in here – ' And he holds up his digivice. 'Purifies them.'

'And then what?' she asks. She's still angry though. And frustrated. And entirely useless and helpless again and has been completely ignored by the Leomon she'd come chasing. But maybe there is something important she can gain from this boy anyway.

Or maybe the important thing was to fight her shadow-self and win.

And the humanoid red digimon shrugs and mumbles something about a Bokomon and an egg village, and she wonders if it's the Primary Village all over again –

And also how this particular digimon can be so naïve.

But she'd been that naïve, once upon a time. So she supposes she can't really blame him.


	8. the Leomon who hates all humans

**The Lion Saver  
** _8: the Leomon who hates all humans_

This Leomon is what she imagines the first one, the mad one, would have been like if she'd ever had the chance to talk to him.

This Leomon hates all humans. It's also the first to try and actively kill her when they meet, and several times thereafter until she manages to blurt out that she's trying to _protect_ him and if he could just _cooperate_ –

And then he asks what he needs protection from.

She takes a stab in the dark and says another human, because the Chosen seem to always be involved (except for the one in the weird eye thing, she thinks – but that's only because she doesn't know the red humanoid is actually a human turned digimon). And it turns out to be right (probably) because he's attacked the human world and the Chosen are gearing up to strike back but it's all wrong and shouldn't she be trying to convince him humans don't need to be destroyed instead of effectively helping him do it?

But he won't listen to reason. That much is obvious from their first few clashes and so she has to bear with him for now. Maybe she can teach him slowly, little by little. Maybe she can find out why.

She does find out why, eventually, and she hasn't a clue what she can do about it. Saying that every basket can have a few bad eggs is incredibly insensitive in the wake of the tragedy he reveals – and the tragedy that continues when that man, the cause of it all, appears again.

That simplifies things, when he's identified. She offers her power for one purpose only, to fight that man. She won't give it to destroy the human world, she says. She won't give it to attack the Chosen Children but she'll give it to protect him, even if she doesn't say it. She doesn't want him rushing recklessly after all, depending on her.

Though with the amount of distress he harbours for humans, it seems unlikely he'll be able to depend on her so completely.

So they target the man. But the man is strong and cheats and uses science and Juri doesn't have a card to counter science. She's got poison cures and anti-numb and all these other thing but they don't work once the man's secret weapon has struck. She can do nothing but watch him crumble away again –

Though maybe she's succeeded a little bit because he seems kind of happy and surprised that there's a human crying tears for him.

But, to her, he's just another Leomon she's failed to save.


	9. the Leomon inside a human

**The Lion Saver**

 _9: the Leomon inside a human_

She sees the red humanoid digimon who destroyed the white Leomon first thing (though he looks a little different now; he didn't have wings before). And another Leomon but this one is no all fours and in black armour.

This time though, it looks like they're on the same side, fighting the same enemy – and winning.

They don't need her help, or her distraction quite yet (she thinks). She has a card ready anyway, and she waits.

They do win. The two of them and four others.

And then they turn back into humans and she just stares at them, because this is something she's never seen before at all.

They spot her. Actually, the red humanoid turned brunet spots her and then the others are tagging along.

And they have no idea. Not one of them has any idea but they're the only ones in reach. _He's_ the only one in reach and so she slaps him. For all the Leomon a Chosen killed. For all the Leomon she couldn't save.

He just rubs his cheek and stares at her. The only girl in their group sighs and shakes her head. 'What did you do, Takuya?'

Juri files the name away, but she doesn't expect to be here long anyway.

In any case, with that done, she's onto her next agenda. 'Which one of you turned into a Leomon?' she asks the remaining five – because she knows it's not Takuya. He's the red humanoid one.

They look at each other, and then one says: 'me' and he looks pretty similar to the boy beside him that she has to blink at them both a moment before realising they must be twins. And she files away that the guy with the short hair is the one –

Though later, when they somehow wind up on the moon, the Starmon change that to "Mr Greensleeves" and she can't stop giggling and yes, she is a tiny bit hysterical but that's okay and he's the only one conscious to judge her anyway.

That has nothing to do with her. She can't use her cards on humans and he'd been in his human form at the time. So had three more. But Takuya and this boy's brother were both digimon and yet they're in the same state, or worse. They're not awake at least.

It's just the two of them and there's nothing happening and it's painfully awkward, but at least she has the chance to ask what's going on with this world.

And he explains it. Explains who Cherubimon was (though she knows he's leaving out a huge chunk of the story and she doesn't push it because she hasn't volunteered much at all), and now Lucemon who turns out to be the puppet master and poor Cherubimon died the puppet. And he also explains that there is a place called the Village of Beginnings where the digi-eggs go to be reborn – but that whole chunks of the digital world are missing and that's what they're fighting to get back, and to stop Lucemon from devouring it all and being revived.

Oh, and they finally introduce themselves to each other.

She follows them, and she can do a little but not much. She can take care of herself, at least, and but at least she's not the only watcher, the only powerless one. Their hyper-spirit evolution sidelines four out of the six and leaves them vulnerable, and when LordKnightmon wraps his ribbons around Kouichi's waist and yanks him into the air, she dives forward and delivers a few punches and kicks of her own with the Mamemon – though she's not sure how much good that did.

But they all look at her admirably – except for the twins who are too busy fussing over each other and that's fair enough considering the situation… but she can't help but feel a little underappreciated at it still.

Then again, dealing with a Leomon that's in fact a human and another Chosen as opposed to a digimon is really confusing. And especially when he's not on the front lines.

But then it strikes her – and almost too late.

Her Leomon wasn't on the front lines as well.

And she's called it right. Lucemon, revived, throws a ball of darkness at the rest of them and Kouichi catches it. He's Lowemon now but it's the same thing, really: a spirit of darkness and who really cares if they don't all have the word "Leomon" somewhere in their name. He's throwing himself in front of an attack he can't quite push back and he knows it and he's doing it to protect them –

And she can see the flicker of her Leomon doing exactly the same thing and her brain freezes.

Her fingers are luckily faster.

Or, maybe, that didn't make a difference at all.


	10. the surviving Leomon

**The Lion Saver  
** _10: the surviving Leomon_

Honestly, it seems like using a cheat to win a game but everybody's too busy crying in the ER to really care about that, including her.

But seriously, how can he be so lucky as to have lost consciousness at the precise moment the Digital World gate opened, getting swept in, and then be killed in the digitital world the same time the gate opened again to wind up back in his human body and alive? Though it seems like Ofanimon helped out a little (or that's what Takuya says) –

But she doesn't have to repeat this anymore so she doesn't really care how it happened. She just wants to see her Leomon.

But she's stuck in this world, for some reason. Nothing changes. Nothing happens, except Kouichi slowly recovers from his tumble down the stairs and is discharged and now she has to do sleep somewhere other than the hospital lobby.

Though it seems like his mother's seen her doing that and invites her home as well.

She accepts.

And then nothing changes after that either, until, frustrated, she explains the whole story and hopes she can get some help.

Also turns out to be the first time she's mentioned her surname to anyone aside from Kouichi, and that flicks lightbulbs in their minds.

Because it turns out Kouichi's not much of an anime watcher but there is a series called Digimon Tamers in this world. And, as luck would have it, it's about her and Takato and all the others. Their story. And the only reason they didn't notice it immediately is because she's changed. Her cheeks are hollower now. Her hair's grown longer and she wears it down. And her dress has turned into a skirt because it got torn one too many times (and she's not even wearing that now because Tomoko-san's given her some of her older clothes and they're old and worn but much nicer than wearing the same thing for months on end). But there she is on screen, and there's Leomon as well – and a brief glimpse of his spirit reignited –

But that's unfair. That's like cheating, if that's what the voice meant and she's stuck in this world and her Leomon's back in their home world. And what about all the Leomon? What about Takato and Ruki and Jenyra and all her other friends? What about her father, and stepmother, and step-brother? What about the life she'd known?

She cries and Kouichi is the one nearest to her because they kind of live together and they came together and he pats her back and her only consolidation is this Leomon (even if he's only like a third Leomon, or something), is still alive – and that the world hasn't tossed her out onto the streets to fend for herself in the aftermath of all of this. Even if she is essentially freeloading. Though they both split the chores and work unofficially part-time and pitch in everywhere so maybe it's not really free-loading at all and maybe there's a bit of net gain going on in all of it and maybe she does get to be with a Leomon for the rest of her life after all.

It's just not what she pictured the happy ending at the end of the road to be. But she can deal. She thinks. Maybe. She's been dealing, after all. Even if she's become someone unrecognisable because of it.

And at least she's not fighting anymore, fighting to save a Leomon who's always fated to die.

Or maybe she is. She has got a housemate to keep an eye on and make sure he doesn't prove the third time being the charm in the wrong way, after all.


End file.
